World Fantasy Awards
| Award | |
|---|---|
| Name: | World Fantasy Awards |
| Date(s): | 1975-ongoing |
| Frequency: | yearly around Halloween |
| Format: | vote |
| Type: | professional and non-professional |
| Associated Community: | World Fantasy Board |
| Fandom: | fantasy fiction and art |
| URL: | Wikipedia; World Fantasy Convention site |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The World Fantasy Awards are awards for excellence in the genre of fantasy fiction and art and are considered as prestigious as the Hugos and Nova Awards, which are awarded for science fiction.
There are currently ten categories considered: novel, novella, short fiction, collection, anthology, artist, special award - professional, special award - non-professional, convention and life achievement for outstanding service to the fantasy field. Nominees and winners are selected by judges and attendees of the Convention; a ballot is posted in June for attendees of that year's and the two previous conventions to nominate two finalists, with the judges (appointed by the World Fantasy Board) nominating three more. Winners are then determined at the convention by the judges, who are usually professionals in the fantasy field.
The awards are presented at the World Fantasy Convention. From 1975 to 2016 the award was a statue of H.P. Lovecraft, designed by cartoonish Gahan Wilson. The current award - a tree with a full moon - was designed by Vincent Villafranca.
History
The WFAs were founded in 1975 as part of the World Fantasy Convention, initially for fantasy and supernatural horror fiction; while the Hugo and Nova Awards were awarded to fantasy works, founder Kirby McCauley felt that as a separate genre fantasy/supernatural horror deserved its own awards:
For altogether too many years, devotees of fantasy and supernatural horror have had to gather within other forums, chiefly that of science fiction. And, while works of fantasy do win the Hugo or Nebula awards from time to time, it comes rather as a reminder that we're dealing with two different genres. The two genres sometimes do overlap, and they do have things in common, but a key appraisal is that, had they lived, it is unlikely that H.P. Lovecraft or Robert E. Howard would ever have won either a Hugo or a Nebula. And the same fate seems to be evolving for certain more contemporary major writers whose work is broadly classified as science fiction but which nevertheless remains something else. That something else can be broadly labeled as fantasy, and the time is at hand to recognize it as a separate entity. For those who love this unique field, 1975 is the time to gather together and honor its creators.
Those first awards began with seven categories - Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Collection, Best Artist, Special Award—Professional, Special Award—Non-professional, and Life Achievement. There have been some changes over the years - the addition of the Convention Award in 1978; splitting Short Fiction award Short Story and Novella awards in 1982; and multi-author anthologies, previously eligible for the Collection award, being split into their own Best Anthology category in 1988.
Controversies
Comics Controversy
In 1991, Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Issue #19 ("A Midsummer's Night's Dream") won the award for Best Short Story. This was controversial in and of itself, as comics were not considered "literature", but it was also reported that the Board then changed the rules to prevent the same thing happening again.[2] The Board clarified that that comics and graphic novels were not intended to be eligible for that category, and said that "Comics are eligible in the Special Award Professional category. We never made a change in the rules."[3]
The "Howard".
There was a heavy Lovecraft influence on the first convention, which was held in Lovecraft's home town of Providence, Rhode Island and this was reflected in the choice of the prize - an elongated bust of Lovecraft nicknamed the "Howard". Throughout the 2010s, however, authors objected to the use of Lovecraft's likeness to represent world fantasy given his outspoken racist views. After some years of argument, in 2014 the Board announced they were in discussion regarding the future of the bust and at the 2015 awards it was announced that the bust would be replaced. Supporters of Lovecraft were unhappy with the decision, with S.T. Joshi returning the two awards he had won and calling for a boycott of the awards[4].
See more on the controversy on the Lovecraft and Racism page.
Awards
Full results of the awards are available at the World Fantasy Convention website[5]. Nominees and winners of the non-professional (aka fan) categories are provided below.
Subpages for World Fantasy Awards:
1970s
1975 - Special Non-Professional
- Stuart David Schiff - winner
- Harry O. Morris - nominee
- Roy A. Squires - nominee
1976 - Special Non-Professional
- Karl Edward Wagner - winner
- David Drake - nominee
- Jim Groce - nominee
- Gerry de la Ree - nominee
- Harry O. Morris - nominee
- George Scithers - nominee
- Roy A. Squires - nominee
- Robert Weinberg - nominee
1977 - Special Non-Professional
- Stuart David Schiff - winner
- Jonathan Bacon - nominee
- Arnie Fenner - nominee
- Nils Hardin - nominee
- Garry Hoppenstand - nominee
- Harry O. Morris - nominee
1978
Special Non-Professional
- Robert Weinberg - winner
- Jonathan Bacon - nominee
- W. Paul Ganley - nominee
- Garry Hoppenstand - nominee
- Stephen Jones - nominee
- Harry O. Morris - nominee
Conventions
- Glenn Lord - winner
1979
Special Non-Professional
- Donald H. Tuck for the "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy" - winner
- Paul C. Allen for Fantasy Newsletter - nominee
- Pat Cadigan for Shayol - nominee
- Arnie Fenner for Shayol - nominee
- W. Paul Ganley for Weirdbook - nominee
- Stuart David Schiff for Whispers & Whispers Press
Conventions
- Kirby McCauley - winner
References
- ^ 1st World Fantasy Convention flyer (undated) - Digital Collections - University of Houston
- ^ "Enter Sandman: Comic Book Wins Fiction Award For First, And Maybe Last, Time" by Brenda Herrmann, Chicago Tribune, December 20, 1991 (via Wayback Sep 28/13)
- ^ World Fantasy Award - Controversies - Wikipedia
- ^ "HP Lovecraft biographer rages against ditching of author as fantasy prize emblem" by Alison Flood, The Guardian, November 11, 2015. (via Wayback November 30, 2015)
- ^ Nominees - World Fantasy Convention